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How Much Should You Eat? Use The Mental Meal Map To Know

As human beings we have the ability to self-terminate the act of eating, says celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar.

By: DoctorNDTV Updated: Feb 21, 2018 02:58 IST

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You need to listen to your gut about how much you should eat

HIGHLIGHTS

Clear eyes, healthy body and an increase in appetite is a sign of success

Avoid using gadgets when you are eating

Know the difference between your need and greed when it comes to eating

Dietitians and nutritionists are often asked about how much food one should eat in order to prevent gaining weight. The surprising thing is that there really is no one right answer to this question. Every human being has a different metabolism, constitution, appetite etc. Rujuta Diwekar, as part of her online Fitness Project 2018 where she gives weekly guidelines to help one adopt small yet challenging health tips in daily life talks about how 'what and how much' we eat is dependent on how our life is going on at that point of time. When we feel successful or happy in life, we tend to celebrate or acknowledge that success by eating food.

As human beings we have the ability to self-terminate the act of eating. We know when to eat and when to stop eating. Listen to yourself when it comes to how much you should be eating. A sick person never really feels hungry. But we are healthy and we feel hungry because we want to learn more, mentions Rujuta on her Facebook page.

She also talks about Yoga and that in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika that clear eyes, healthy body and an increase in appetite is a sign of success. This is the reason that whenever something good happens in our life, we feel like eating.

When we are on a diet and try to portion control, we forcefully make ourselves eat less and mask our appetite with tea, coffee, chewing gums, soups, etc. This makes success on the path of weight loss seem very elusive.

Photo Credit: iStock

According to Rujuta, we will be able to live a good life when we are conveniently able to tell the difference between our needs and greed. No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to achieve our desired target of fitness if we don't enjoy the journey. It is very important to learn to enjoy food, good health and fitness - without feeling any sense of guilt, regret or frustration.

On the Facebook post, she explains how we feel that our being fat or unhealthy is because of the calories we consume. However, the real culprit is the obesogenic environment that we are living in. An obesogenic environment is one where we have almost forgotten what it is to nurture and cherish our food. Eating while reading the newspaper or using any gadget has made it impossible for people to know and eat the right amount of food.

Photo Credit: iStock

So, in order to help us recognise what is the right amount of food, Rujuta curated a Mental Meal Map which will help us to understand our appetite in a better way. The mental meal map will also help us in learning what is the right quantity in which we should eat.

The STEP 1 of the map asks us to visualize how much we would like to eat. In STEP 2, we need to serve half the portion of the amount that we have visualized to eat in STEP 1. In STEP 3, we need to take double the time to eat the meal we served in STEP 2. And for STEP 4, in case we are still hungry, we need to simply start again from STEP 1.

Infographic of Mental Meal MapPhoto Credit: Rujuta Diwekar

Rujuta suggests that along with the map, we should follow a few eating etiquettes. Firstly, we need to fix a place of eating and eat in that place as often as possible. Secondly, using gadgets while we are eating is a complete no-no. Thirdly, we should try and sit in the cross-legged position of Sukhasana while eating and eat with our hands. Lastly, we should drink a glass of water before our meal.

Photo Credit: iStock

In her post, Rujuta says that following the mental meal map can be used even we are eating out in restaurants or attending weddings or parties.

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